


hands to heart

by dizzy



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-12
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2020-03-02 08:33:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18807532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dizzy/pseuds/dizzy
Summary: Dan does some yoga to clear his mind.





	hands to heart

Some days Dan feels like he's barely keeping his head above water. His life feels like a deck of cards scattered on the floor around him, and he knows he needs to bend down and pick a few up but it feels like too many to handle and what if he goes for the wrong ones? If they're all still on the ground then he feels like he's living in stasis; he can't make the wrong decision if he's not making any decisions at all. 

But he knows it doesn't really work like that. Decisions are being made constantly, with every single tick of the clock. Time drips through his fingertips and sometimes that alone makes the choices of him; deadlines he set in his head passing by, inaction turned to inability. 

And he does make progress on some things. True stasis doesn't exist while he lives and breathes and thinks and exists. He's making choices, signing emails, he's helping Phil with things, he's looking at all the messages even if he doesn't respond. 

He's thinking. He's learning. He's being. 

He's trying, in a big way, to understand who he is and who he wants to become. He's trying to love this person he is on the inside that he barely even feels acquainted with. He's unlearning old habits, trying to parse out how he genuinely feels about things and untangle it from the messy ropes of expectation and society and viewers and career. 

He knows he's lucky he can do that. He knows for a lot of people in life this isn't a choice. Sometimes in his pettier moments he's jealous of people that don't have as much choice. He thinks with the naivety of someone who has never had to experience it how nice it might be to have to wake up at the same time every day, to let survival instinct kick in and guide him. 

But even in this moments, he's not stupid. He knows the lucky hand he's been dealt. He knows that people look at his life and think: why is he wasting it? What is he doing with it? He buckles sometimes under the weight of his assumptions of that judgement, and the concrete examples of it; the demands people have of him, the projections they place onto what he feels. 

Sometimes they're right. Sometimes they're not. Sometimes the same things are right in one moment and wrong in the next because he isn't there yet. He doesn't know who he is yet. 

What does he know? That he likes the stretch of this half moon pose. His body collects tension through the hours and he likes the quiet and the stillness of this empty room and the way he can push himself without exertion. Sometimes running is the adrenaline he needs, but sometimes it just feels too much like he’s trying to run away from the ghosts that are chasing him. This feels better. Easier. More centered. 

He shifts upward. There's sweat just barely gathered at the nape of his neck. He draws his body up, lengthens everything into eagle. 

Phil can't do this one. He falls on his ass every time. Yoga with Phil is half calming and half comedy routine. Sometimes that's the best thing it can be for Dan. 

He allows himself to feel the thrum of that thought under his surface, the quiet ache of _miss him, miss him, miss him_. It's too many years and too much time together and, for Dan, too much helpful therapy for it to be an all-consuming thing. But he still feels it just the same as the air in his lungs. 

And that's okay. His feelings aren't wrong. Feelings are always valid; it's actions that he has to be careful with. Maybe he learned that lesson too well. Maybe he's too careful now. Maybe he's realized that he can hide behind caution and soothe his anxiety by twisting the words told to him in the enclosed space of his therapist's office. 

He's always been bad at moderation. He had no sense of it when he was younger, all emotion and impulse. Now he's afraid to take any risk at all. 

He feels the tightness banding over his chest and lowers his body, both feet on the ground. He breathes heavily, gasping air, and centers himself again. He drops to his knees slightly too hard for the thin mat to completely absorb the impact of, and folds forward into queen pigeon. 

Phil always likes this one. Dan always tells him to keep his bird fetish to himself. 

He's meant to meditate afterwards, but maybe he'll ring Phil up instead. He'll tell Phil what he feels and just the act of voicing the words, confronting this thing growing inside of him, will help. 

It always does. He's not sure why he considers it a last resort. Something about the guilt, something about interrupting Phil's holiday, something about the way keeping things in his own mind feels like a fitting punishment even if he can't say why he deserves it. 

He closes his eyes and goes into child's pose. He does feel like a child now; small and hurting on the inside and so confused as to why everything has to feel so bad all the time. 

(Not everything. 

Not all the time. 

But his brain lies.) 

He doesn't cry. It's a hard day, but it's not the worst. He sits up and looks around. He doesn't feel like he knows this room. He doesn't want to know this room. He wants to skip a few steps ahead, to be in the place that's his forever or until they outgrow it. He breathes out the pain and inhales the hope. 

The hope feels good. The anticipation feels good. 

He's gonna call Phil, because it doesn't matter that Phil's in Florida. Phil will always stop and talk to him and Dan won't feel bad about that. If talking to Phil doesn't work, he'll try going for a run again. Then he'll play some video games. Maybe he'll watch a sad movie. 

There's nothing wrong with thinking too many thoughts. He just can't let it control him. He'll keep treading water even when it feels murky. 

He'll be just fine.

**Author's Note:**

> [read and reblog on tumblr](https://alittledizzy.tumblr.com/post/184836095755/hands-to-heart-pg-1k-dan-does-some-yoga-to-clear)


End file.
